Former WMU walk-on Chris Maragos finds validation at Wisconsin

David Stluka | Special to the Kalamazoo GazetteWisconsin defensive back Chris Maragos caught 25 passes for 222 yards in 2006 for Western Michigan University. He spent two years at WMU before becoming a Badger.

MADISON, Wis. — There are days when Chris Maragos finds himself sitting alone in Section B, Row 30 at Camp Randall Stadium.

It is there that his world seems most real and unreal all at once.

Maragos grew up in those seats. Now he can’t believe his parents, sitting there at almost every University of Wisconsin home football game since 1993, are watching him on Saturdays.

“I used to think it would be a dream for me to run out of that tunnel,” Maragos said. “ ... It’s unreal. God has to receive all the glory because it’s hard to explain this for any other reason but God.”

Be it God or his own toughness, talent and perseverance — Maragos has done far more than run out of the Camp Randall tunnel on game days.

Chris MaragosThe former Western Michigan University walk-on is one of the Badgers’ team captains, a senior starter at safety, the defense’s fifth-leading tackler and, not to be slighted, on scholarship.

“As an athlete, you’ve got to expect it,” Maragos said. “But at the same time, this was totally unexpected.”

It’s a long way from his days as an almost nothing prospect at William Horlick High School in Racine, Wis.

Not a single Division I program offered Maragos a scholarship and only Western Michigan guaranteed a spot as a preferred walk-on.

So he came to Kalamazoo. And by 2006, he found himself starting at receiver, catching 25 passes for 222 yards for an eight-win team bound for a bowl game.

“Western was a great opportunity,” said Maragos, who met his fiancé at WMU. “I had some of my most memorable years there.

“I talk to Tim Hiller weekly. He’s going to be a groomsman at my wedding. I’m a groomsman at his wedding.”

What Maragos wasn’t at WMU, however, was on scholarship. And when an offer didn’t come immediately after the ’06 season, he decided he’d take a shot trying out for his beloved Badgers.

“Coach (Bill) Cubit was telling me they’re only taking five receivers (on trips in ’07) and it seemed like I might be left off the bus,” Maragos said, citing a conversation with the Broncos coach, for whom he says he still garners a “tremendous amount of respect,” despite the way things ended.

Eventually, Maragos said, the scholarship was offered. But by then, he had already made up his mind.

“People said, ‘If you can’t even make it at Western, what the heck do you think you’re doing at Wisconsin? ... You’re taking a big gamble.’”

At first, it looked as if he’d spend the remainder of his college football career as a scout-team receiver, that he’d get to run out of that tunnel, but that would be about the extent of his glory.

Yet, eventually the same intangibles that got him noticed at WMU were noticed in Madison.

“I was working so much with the first-team defense on the scout team, everything I was doing on a daily basis, playing running back, quarterback, receiver — the (defensive coaches) saw a bit of my athleticism.”

By the spring of 2008, Maragos had worked himself into the nickel packages, playing with the first team in every passing situation. By the middle of last season, he was a full-time starter.

And by the end of spring practice this past April, he was on scholarship.

“When I was given that by coach (Bret) Bielema ... It was validation of all the hard work. (It showed) that had confidence and trust in me. That’s what mattered more to me.”

Maragos has more than paid back the tuition for the 3-0 Badgers. He came up with the game-clinching interception in overtime against Fresno State and, a week earlier against Northern Illinois, tallied a career-best nine tackles before breaking up a fourth-down pass on NIU’s final drive to preserve the win.